Surprise! We’re breathing cleaner air

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Apr 26, 2023 View in browser   By Erin Schumaker, Ben Leonard and Ruth Reader REALLY? The smog is mostly gone, even in LA. | Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo Good (climate!) news: The air Americans breathe is getting cleaner — at least in some areas — a new report finds. By the numbers: The American Lung Association’s 2023 report says 17.6 million fewer people in the U.S. are breathing unhealthy air compared with the association’s report from last year. The report, which used the most recently available air-quality data from federal, state, local and tribal sources, looked at two widespread pollutants: fine particles and ozone. The Clean Air Act’s long tail: The trend toward cleaner air is partly attributable to long-time regulations that reduced vehicle, power plant and manufacturing emissions. Now, the bad news: — Despite gains, nearly 120 million Americans live in counties with either ozone or particle-pollution levels high enough for the report to give the county a failing air-quality grade. — People of color are 3.7 times more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing air-quality grade. — Living or working near a highway puts you at higher risk of damaging exposure to traffic pollution. — Rising temperatures, droughts and wildfires linked to climate change are threatening air pollution progress. Why it matters (for health): Air pollution is linked to a host of ailments, including respiratory problems like lung cancer and asthma, heart attacks, strokes, premature birth and early death.   STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today.     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Arlington, Va. | Ben Leonard This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Many elderly people learned how to use Zoom during the pandemic to keep up with friends and family. It was no replacement for in-person visits, a new report says. Researchers from Harvard Medical School found, rather, that video calls were associated with feelings of depression and anxiety about Covid-19. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Megan Messerly talks with Erin Schumaker about hospitals that want an exemption from an FTC proposal to ban noncompete agreements, saying it would wreak havoc on their finances and harm patients, and what a ban's potential consequences could be for patients, doctors and investors. Listen to today’s Pulse Check podcast TECH MAZE Many doctors still haven't take up all the latest digital tools. | Felicia Fonseca/AP Photo Telemedicine and electronic patient records are ubiquitous even in states with lagging health outcomes, but more nascent technology like home monitoring and mobile health apps still have a ways to go. Researchers from the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine and NORC at the University of Chicago studied digital health tech adoption in four states in the South — North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky — surveying more than 1,200 primary care clinicians. They found: — 2 in 3 used telemedicine and electronic health records. — Fewer than 2 in 5 used a prescription-drug monitoring program. — About a quarter used mobile apps and wearable devices to track patients. — Only 1 in 10 leveraged home-monitoring technology to keep tabs. The limited adoption of mobile apps, wearables and home-monitoring “suggests challenges related to patient access — and therefore health equity — especially as use of these tools increases in specialty and higher resourced settings,” the researchers wrote in the report. The top barriers clinicians cited to using those technological aides were time, cost and an inability to fully integrate the tech into their workflows.   LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.     THE REGULATORS It could get easier to fight subscription creep in the U.K. soon. | Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo Firms that offer low introductory rates for health subscriptions online for products, like vitamins or healthy foods, or services, like therapy sessions, face new regulations in the U.K. A bill aimed at big technology firms includes a provision that would require all firms using subscription models to warn patients when introductory offers are expiring and make subscriptions easy to cancel. The bill will also crack down on fake reviews. “Every business offering a subscription model to consumers needs to pay close attention,” Nick Breen, a partner at legal firm Reed Smith, told POLITICO’s Tom Bristow. Even so: It will take months to get through Parliament and become law. Industry lobbyists are pushing for changes, arguing the bill is unfair and anti-business.   Follow us on Twitter Ben Leonard @_BenLeonard_ Ruth Reader @RuthReader Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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